Rory McIlroy is 20 under par for his last 51 holes of competitive golf, and he says he is not
surprised by it.

If that’s true, he has to be the only one.

Little more than a week after suddenly breaking off his engagement to tennis star Caroline
Wozniacki and enduring the public fallout, the 25-year-old from Northern Ireland continued an
amazing rebound yesterday when he shot the best opening round in the history of the Memorial
Tournament.

Four days after winning the European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship near
London, McIlroy shot a 9-under-par 63 at Muirfield Village Golf Club to stake himself to a
three-stroke lead over a field that, including himself, features nine of the top 12 players in the
world.

McIlroy one-putted 14 holes, tied his career-low with 22 putts and, with two holes to play,
still had a chance to equal John Huston’s course record despite a double bogey at No. 14. Huston
shot 61 in the second round of the 1996 Memorial.

“I was expecting this to happen,” McIlroy said. “I’ve been playing well. I’ve been posting good
numbers. I knew my game was close.”

That he also did it with a sore knee he “tweaked” on his second shot at the seventh hole only
added to the amazement at his performance.

“The inside of it is sore. It’s a little swollen,” McIlroy said. “I’ll go see the physio and get
some treatment and get ice on it and hopefully it will be OK for (today). I tweaked my back (last
Friday) and played through that last weekend. I’ll be OK.”

Masters champion Bubba Watson, Paul Casey and Chris Kirk shared second place after 66s, and more
than a third of the field broke par on a day when Muirfield Village yielded the lowest scoring
average by a full field (72.158) in seven years.

“A little bit of rain (0.03 inch late Wednesday afternoon) softened it up, so conditions were
favorable for good scores,” Watson said. “It’s not like they’re handing you birdies. You still have
to play some good golf, hit some quality shots. But it’s obviously favorable for low scoring.”

Also, the absence of wind helped make the par-5 holes reachable in two shots for big hitters
such as McIlroy, Watson, Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson. Bradley shot 67. Mickelson was as low
as 5 under par before playing his last three holes 5 over par, with double-bogeys at Nos. 17 and
18.

“You take advantage of those,” said McIlroy, who played the four par-5s at 5 under par. Watson
was 4 under on them.

McIlroy’s only hiccup came at 14, where he short-sided himself in the left bunker and, from a
buried lie, had no shot at the pin with the green sloping away from him toward a stream on the
other side.

“I was plugged on the downslope, so it was either leave the ball in the bunker just in front of
me and then try to get it up and down from there … (or) get the ball out of the bunker and sort of
around the front of the green so I could have a putt up the green and make my (bogey) and take my
medicine,” he said.

He chose the latter, but, “It just didn’t come off the way I wanted it to,” he said.

The ball landed in the same bunker but farther from the hole, and McIlroy was unable to get up
and down for bogey.

Watson, who started on the back nine, said he saved himself when he birdied four of his last
five holes after dropping a couple of shots just before making the turn. He bogeyed Nos. 16 and 17
but said he didn’t mind the bogey at 16 “because I don’t like that hole.”

Mickelson also bogeyed No. 16, which Jack Nicklaus rebuilt in 2010 to include a pond left of the
green. Mickelson said it does not set up well for left-handers such as Watson and him.

“I think one tee up, about 20 yards up and about 10 yards to the right, (would) make that hole
one of the best holes we play all year,” Watson said.

Asked whether he has suggested as much to Nicklaus, he said, “Jack’s not worried about what
Bubba Watson says about his course.”